Pesticide Exposure Could Boost
Risk of Miscarriage
© Environment News Service (ENS) 2001
February 19, 2001 (ENS)
By Cat Lazaroff
CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina - Living close
to areas where agricultural pesticides are applied may boost the risk
of fetal death due to birth defects, a new University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill study indicates. Researchers say their
findings suggest but do not prove a hazard from pesticide exposure.
The study, which involved almost 700 women in 10 California counties,
showed an increased risk of death among developing babies. Mothers
who lived near crops where certain pesticides were sprayed faced a 40
to 120 percent increase in risk of miscarriage due to birth defects.
| "Our study showed a consistent pattern with respect to timing of
exposure" - Dr. Erin Bell... |
Sprayed pesticides can drift on the wind to contaminate nearby
communities, or enter drinking water in runoff from fields.
Five pesticide classes were examined in the new study, including
phosphates, pyrethroids, halogenated hydrocarbons, carbamates and
endocrine disruptors.
Scientists compared the cases of 73 women whose pregnancies ended
because of birth defects with 611 control subjects whose pregnancies
ended in normal live births.
"Our study showed a consistent pattern with respect to timing of
exposure," said Dr. Erin Bell, who earned her doctorate with the
research at the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Public
Health. "The largest risks for fetal death due to birth defects were
from pesticide exposure during the third week to the eighth week of
pregnancy."
That span - much of the first trimester - appears to be a special
window of vulnerability for birth defects, Bell said, just as earlier
research has suggested.
Pesticide spraying on a soybean farm (Three photos courtesy U.S.
Agricultural Research Service)
"The risks appeared to be strongest among pregnant women who lived in
the same square mile where pesticides were used," she said.
A report on the research will appear in the March issue of
"Epidemiology," a public health journal. Besides Bell, now an
epidemiologist with the National Cancer Institute, the authors
include her mentor Dr. Irva Hertz-Picciotto, professor of
epidemiology at UNC, and Dr. James Beaumont, formerly of the
University of California at Davis and now with the California
Environmental Protection Agency.
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"This is the first study to our knowledge of pesticides and pregnancy
in which exposures were in close proximity to the subjects and the
verification of pesticide use was objective, not relying on people's
memories of what they might have been exposed to," Hertz-Picciotto
said.
| "The take home message is that we did find an increased risk for
women living near agricultural fields where pesticides were applied
during the early weeks of their pregnancies..." |
Researchers tapped information about dates, locations and amounts of
chemicals applied by air or ground equipment resulting from the
California law requiring that all restricted pesticide use be
reported. They compared that with detailed information about where
pregnant women lived and what happened with their pregnancies.
Some pesticides warn that children should not be allowed near sprayed
areas until the chemical has completely dried
"The take home message is that we did find an increased risk for
women living near agricultural fields where pesticides were applied
during the early weeks of their pregnancies, but these results are
not conclusive," Bell said.
Investigators cautioned that further study is needed since they
lacked certain information.
"Our exposure classification method did not guarantee that a mother
was in fact exposed because wind and weather conditions, hour of
application and the location of the mother at the times of
application were all factors that would determine actual exposure,"
she said.
Women considering becoming pregnant who are worried about pesticide
exposure should consult their physicians, she said.
About 19,000 fetal deaths occur in the United States each year, and
the causes remain a significant public health problem, Bell said.
Among known risk factors are smoking, advanced age among pregnant
women and previous history of fetal deaths.
In the past, few epidemiological studies of pesticide exposure and
birth defects have considered timing of possible exposures.
California counties included in the new UNC study were Madera,
Tulare, Kings, Merced, Monterey, Stanislaus, San Joaquin, Riverside,
Fresno and Kern.
© Environment News Service (ENS) 2001. All Rights Reserved.
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